Ciolek claims first victory for MTN-Qhubeka in Ichtegem

Gerald Ciolek scored an historic first victory for Africa's new Pro Continental outfit MTN-Qhubeka in the final stage of the 3-Daagse van West-Vlaanderen. The German beat out Adrien Petit (Cofidis) and Bobbie Traksel (Champion System) to win the sprint in Ichtegem. Omega Pharma-QuickStep's Kristoff Vandewalle secured the overall victory after leading the race since the prologue.

The win for Ciolek came after a disastrous finish to the first stage in which he crashed with two of his teammates outside the 3km banner.

"Cycling is amazing. One day you have all the bad luck and then the next day you are on the podium," Ciolek said after the race.

While it took some time for the team to hone its lead-out, things came together perfectly on a calm final stage.

"There were narrow roads and it was quite technical towards the finish which suits me perfectly. I had the perfect lead-out from Ignatas [Konovalovas] then my last guy was Andreas [Stauff] and he lead me out to 250m to go and I just had to finish the job."

Overall winner Vandewalle heads to South Africa

The overall race victory went to prologue winner Vandewalle, who enjoyed his first stage race win as a professional. The Belgian time trial champion has a number of victories against the clock, including the Omega Pharma-Quickstep team's world title from 2012, but this one was special.

"I am super happy about this victory," Vandewalle said. "For me it's something special because I am from this region, making it a bit of a hometown race. It was a pleasure for me to win in front of my public. I have to say also that, I had a good performance in the prologue and yesterday I felt good, but today I really got great support from my teammates.

"I have to thank them, they did a great job because today wasn't one of the best racing days of my life. Fortunately I can count on a strong team. I think the problem was I felt a little bit the sickness of last week, when I had a fever. So, today, I felt a little weak after three days in a row of racing after a few days of sickness. It was not so easy but I am happy I pulled it off.

"I will celebrate this victory with my team and look forward to my next appointment: Cape Argus Pick 'n Pay Cycle Tour. We will go there with Iljo Keisse and Julien Vermote to try and get a good result there also. Why not? We will try to do our best and maybe even get a victory. We will see!"

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